'People working collectively can and do make a difference'

'Time is always right to do what is right' - Martin Luther King Jr

The slim figure of Anastasia Crickley walks through the revolving door and into the spacious, bright lobby of the Dunboyne Castle Hotel. She's running late for an interview with the Meath Chronicle but for this busy sixtysomething you suspect that's not unusual.

Officially Anastasia is retired from her job as a head of the Department of Applied Social Studies at NUI Maynooth; the reality it different. The truth is that she will probably never retire. Not really.

Anastasia, you see, is on a mission. She is fired up by a passionate desire to do all she can to help the downtrodden, the racially abused, the oppressed, the disadvantaged. It is that mission that has shaped her life, brought her to some interesting places in various parts of the world including the UN Assembly in New York.

The Skryne woman has stood on the podium in that august building and and made speeches on number of occasions - and not too many Irish people can say they have done that. She had a right to make those speeches in her role as chairperson of the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the first Irish person to head up such a committee. 

"It was in that role I would go to New York twice a year to speak to the General Assembly, once in March on International Day Against Racism and then again in November to give account of the Committee's work," she explained after she had a chance to have a sip of coffee and settle herself down to reflect on her life so far. 

As part of her life's mission Anastasia has been part of a huge range of organisations and committees. She was an co-founder of Pavee Point (the National Traveller's Centre) and  European Network Against Racism and closely involved in the Migrants Rights Centre in Ireland - and that's only a flavour, an aperitif, of what she has done. She describes herself "as a community worker and academic committed to working towards a just and fair society where rights, including women's rights are realised." 

And there's more. "I believe this work needs to be done simultaneously at a variety of levels and that people working collectively can and do make a difference." Those words alone could pass as her mission statement. From 2004 to 2011 she was on the Council of State, appointed by Mary McAleese, an indication of how prominent she became in the anti-racism, anti-discrimination movement. 

As she walks into the Dunboyne Castle Hotel it's impossible not to notice that she is sporting a replica of the famed Skryne brooch, it's a proud symbol of her origins. From Skryne to the podium at the UN. It has been quite a journey for Anastasia Crickley.
 

TREVET 

Brought up in Trevet, a townland between Skryne and Dunshaughlin, Anastasia has one sister, Ellen. Their father was John, who worked as a "herd" or herdsman for a local landowner. The sisters grew up in secure family environment where learning; the pursuit of education was greatly encouraged - and that approach left its mark.

"My dad was a very bright man who was very good with animals, he acted as an informal vet, supporting a lot of local farmers," explains Anastasia. "My mother, Peggy, was a very interesting woman who was in many ways way ahead of her time, very committed to my sister and I and our education. She was also very interested in ideas.

"I think that's very true of many people of their generation, they were very committed to the new Republic, they were very committed to development of the country. Our house was a house where the events of the day were discussed." These days Anastasia regularly returns to Trevet and the home place.   

Looking back Anastasia says she was fortunate in many ways. Not only because of her background but the fact that she was able to win a scholarship to St Michael's, Loreto, Navan as a boarder in the 1960s. She was also the first of a tranche of students to benefit from the newly introduced grants to attend third level.  From 1968 Anastasia studied social sciences in UCD. 

She worked with the fledgling National Youth Council in Ireland for a time before moving to England where she found employment in a number of jobs including the Irish Centre in Camden Town. It was in England when the spark was really ignited; the spark that put her on the path to becoming a fully-fledged, hugely-committed community worker. A champion of the oppressed, the racially abused, the downtrodden.  

When asked what EXACTLY started her out on the road to being a champion of human rights she says it was "an accumulation of things." She points to the injustices of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. They were examples of how Irish people were taken in and sentenced for crimes they never committed; and example of racial discrimination at its worst. 

"I grew up very clearly aware of the differences and divisions and the problems Irish people faced but I think my personal experience of working, being an Irish person, being an emigrant working with Irish people in the UK, particularly in the 1970s, really made it very clear to me that human rights were important and needed to be considered. It also made it clear to me the importance of the rights of migrants.

"I remember I was in Birmingham around the time of the bombs and it was absolutely clear, having an Irish accent was a total no, no. It was difficult. The injustice, the discrimination and the realities of it all and also seeing very clearly the problems Irish people could face on a day-to-day basis."
 

HUMAN RIGHTS 

Once she returned to Ireland in the early 1980s Anastasia sought to continue to champion human rights. She experienced the kind of racial discrimination she had seen in England in the way Travellers were treated in Ireland and she became closely involved in setting up of Pavee Point. She landed a job working in the area of social science at Maynooth and was to eventually head the department, all the time continuing her community work. 

It was a busy life. She met and married a Galwayman John O'Connell, a former Columban priest who worked in the Philipines. John and Anastasia were married in 1987 and were to have a son, Cóilín. It was a happy time but the dark clouds gathered when John developed a brain tumour that sadly was to prove fatal. This year is the 20th anniversary of his passing.

 John too shared Anastasia's passion for human rights and they had worked closely together to find a better way. As part of their struggle they sought to get the assistance of the European Union. 

"If you think back to the 1980s there was no legislation against racism in Ireland, so we became involved in supporting initiatives in Europe to get European directives in those areas because once you had a European directive than Ireland would have to put in place laws that would make it possible to implement those directives. Eventually we got the directives that led to the foundation of the Equality Authority and the Irish Human Rights Commission."

As time moved on she became a beacon for human rights rising up to a position savoured by relatively few where she could speak at the United Nations in the Big Apple  -  and where she wore that Skryne brooch so proudly. 
Anastasia Crickley has certainly sought to do her bit to prevent racism. It's clear too the fire still burns. Burns as brightly as ever.